Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1887-10-10
The FreShet.

erbockers and l just out of bibs, we
had decided that when we grew up
and had a house of our own, it was
to be our own, his and mine, and we
were to live together and to live
alone: and if the chief of our diet
there was to be apple tarts and but
ter scotches, that was to be our own
affair
1t is a thousand pities that it was
about that house that all the route
happened. For the fact is that l had
the strongest sort of will, and so had
Mark and when it came to the point
it was not that house at all that |
wanted.
For you see, the spot where l had
! lived, down on the great meadow
farms, was my sole idea of the beau
tv and pleasantness of the world.
Across the river with its high bank
crowned with feathery and always
trembling and shining birches, the
hills rose, far and faint and purple
vague but here there were only long
green levels of grass fields, lying low
and even with the river, that filled
and sparkled in the reeds along the
| edge and flowed by US broad and
grand on its way to the ocean. And
when the sun shone and the sky was
| blue and the south wind softly blow
ing, one seemed as near heaven liv-
ing there as it is given one to be on
earth.
There were quite a number of
dwelling houses here, where this
| corner of several of the great river
farms converged. so that although
their lands stretched out in different
directions, the buildings clustered to-
gether like village; and we always
came and went freely into each 9th
er's houses, and knew each others
| concerns, and were more like one
large family than strangers and l
| loved my neighbors every one, and
did not want to 60 away from them.
And when it came to the question of
marrying and going away, I was SIM
ply determined that / wouldn't 90
ho+ NTo,,I- Cho1,l1
down to this garden Of Eden, where
| knew every tint Of the ripe grass on
the meadow, every sparkle Of the wa
ter, every fleece of clouds upon the
blue of heaven.
"And why not, Mark urged.
''Here is this immense farm, a really
great property, and would you leave
it TO take ooro of itaalf, and we to 90
to live two miles away on your faith
er's place, that bleak, lonesome rock
up in the air, shut in by pine for
est, like great fortress-a prison, q
real dungeon ?"
''It isn't like a prison to me, said
Mark. ''It is the brightest spot in
the world-it would be if you were in
it, Nam" NY real name was PANE
la, but that's the way people always
used to call me.
''And no neighbors there - | eX-
claimed, ''nobody to talk over the
garden wall, nobody to borrow of.
nobody to show your new things to,
nobody if you are sick. One might
as well be buried alive. L always
thought So
Il should want nobody but you,
Nan. if we were married and that
was our home 1t would be simply
paradise
sit wouldn't be paradise to me
without any water to see. l never
liked the verse in the Bible about
there being no more sea. Pretty
heaven that, without any sea to look
at l couldn't live without my river.
I've always had it running by, run
ming up or running down. coming
from somewhere, going to somewhere,
life and motion. l always look out
the first thing in the morning to see
if it is there, and | listen for it at
night. And it makes two skies at
night-One above and one below
with stars down in the under world
and then by day the color, and the
pushing of the tide, taking you right
into the mysteries. Oh, it's stagna-
ton without a river! I'd as lief be
dead"
''And l think just as much of the
pine woods, he said, ''with the muir
muir of the boughs and when a wind
begins to blow, long before we feel it
down below, the tree-tops know it
and are whispering about it one to
another, like old witches brewing a
Storm
And there is nothing but patch |
of garden there in your fathers old |
place" l went on without needing |
land here are these long, rich grass
lands; and how in the world are we
to manage a farm two miles away |
from it, 1 should like to know"
Il know" said Mark, easily. "Just |
as you would two rods away"
"It's impossible" said l. "You
don't understand anything about the /
oversight and care that great farm
needs if you think that.
"Weu, we could sell the farm
.'Sel the farm :" | cried, starting /
up. MY father's,m grandfather's,
my great-grandfather's."
s'Your Noah's, your Adams"
k.IIou- dare rou tall oo 70 mo-